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discoveredinaljSqueaking in under the wire, in my traditional fashion... A long time ago I was reading the Pros letterzines Cold Fish and Stale Chips, which was basically a letterzine of WIPs in one form or another. Some were complete and inviting comment before publication elsewhere, some would later be completed, and some were presumably abandoned, but the authors who submitted a piece were asked a series of questions. One of them was "Do you intend to finish this story, or would you like to see someone else do so?" For some reason, a story by Emily Ross caught my attention - believe it or not it was an elf story, and I found myself wondering what happened next. So I had a bit of a play. *g*
I tried to track down the original author to ask more about the story, and whether she would mind her beginning being posted online, but with no luck (if anyone knows her and could put me in touch that would be great) and so instead of posting her beginning here, I rewrote it and offer up all credit to her for the original idea. I've marked the section that begins my own part of the story with a double-asterisk.
I do appreciate that I may lose alot of non-AU (and non-elf!) readers right here, and I may lose a few more when I tell you that there is much more of it to be written, but my excuse is still moving house/job/Christmas all at once I'm afraid - I've still not been able to catch up, and much as I tried to write something new and more CI5-ish, it just didn't happen. I will try to write something over the next few weeks though, because things are finally calming down - just a bit too late for the Bleak Midwinter...
Halfworld Mercenary
From an original unfinished piece by Emily Ross (Cold Fish and Stale Chips, Issue 2), rewritten and continued
by Slantedlight
In the depths of the woods, under cool green leaves and over the soft forest floor, they sped after the beast, fleet of foot and sure of success, the five of them finally working together as a single trained unit, and with one purpose - to bring the creature down. None of them were really sure what it was, despite their pursuit, but they all knew what they had seen and they knew that it was dangerous.
It had been a hard chase, but they were nearly there now - passing the grove of elegant birch with their copper bark, forcing the thing westwards and past old mother hazel, on and on towards the Edges, and then - yes! A sudden green snap! as the grass beyond came into sight, and their trap was sprung, a heavy ironwood log flung free and smashing hard into their unsuspecting prey. The creature fell, rolled half a dozen feet, and then was still.
They approached cautiously, as if it might be feinting, but they could all see where the ironwood had struck, crushing the beast’s dark shell. It lay face down before them and the company formed a ragged circle around it, doing nothing but catch their breath and watch, amazed and triumphant at their victory.
“We did it,” Blackthorn finally breathed, reaching out with his foot, nudging the thing. “We brought down our first troll!”
Cliffdancer tilted his head to one side. “Is it dead?”
Sunbeam stepped forward and crouched down beside the creature, placed a cautious hand on the shiny black carapace. “Can’t feel it breathing,” he reported at last, but it felt warm under him, and he ran his hand higher up, toward the crushed shoulder. It didn’t feel like anything he knew, not hide, nor horn… “This is metal,” he said suddenly. “No wonder our arrows couldn’t pierce it.” Even his own carefully placed shots had simply bounced away from the creature. He began to pull away some of the broken pieces.
“Metal!” Foxface exclaimed. “An automaton?”
Sunbeam shrugged - he would have to dig deeper to find out. The shards became harder to remove, until one fragment resisted his one-handed work entirely. He brought his other hand to the task, tugged harder, until it finally slid sideways and out. He frowned, held it up to the light.
Cornsilk reached out and touched it, and her finger came away red. “Blood,” she said. “Something in there is alive.”
“Or was,” Sunbeam agreed.
“I don’t like it!” Foxface decided, alarmed. “We should smash it!”
“In case it’s not dead!” Blackthorn agreed.
“No,” Cornsilk said, just as quickly, so that Sunbeam looked up at her curiously. “The war turns against us, and this is a new thing - we may be able to learn from it.”
“We should bind it,” Cliffdancer suggested. “Make it more safe.”
Sunbeam nodded. “Do it.”
Four of the five urging caution, more than enough, and they all hurried to turn agreement to action, tying it face down and spread-eagled, each limb secured with rope to a different tree.
Sunbeam returned to his exploration of the creature. Before long he had cleared away enough of the shell to properly see beneath and at first he stared, puzzled, before reaching down with a more confident finger and pulling the blood-matted grey cloth further away from the wound. “It wears clothes,” he said, reaching to pass the remnant back to Cornsilk to examine. She did not take it, and he frowned and turned to look at her.
She had stepped back, and was swallowing as if unwell, and Sunbeam looked again from her to the creature. The shell, the cloth, the blood… and then he saw what she had seen, and understood.
Under its armour, the creature was pale and naked as a grub, as if it had never seen the sunlight, never walked in the freshness of the wind and the rain. Against his own skin, long sun-kissed, it was an almost frightening contrast. He gritted his teeth, carried on cleaning the wound. At last, the others still watching cautiously lest it wake, he washed away the blood and cleaned the flesh, reached into his pack and staunched it with herbs, and finally pinned it together with thorns and twine. It would heal. He began to bind it round to keep it dry, and behind him Cliffdancer and Blackthorn began to work on the rest of the armour. In a moment they had the trick of it and their nimble fingers were undoing clasps and clips, peeling the shell away entirely, until even gauntlets and boots were gone. Cornsilk reached over with her knife, split the grey knit bodystocking along its centre, and pulled it free.
Naked before them, the creature was suddenly less of a creature, and barely more fearsome than they were themselves, for all its strange paleness. It was more heavily built, but not, Sunbeam thought, much taller, and from the back of its head along its spine and down to its feet, everything they could see looked perfectly familiar.
“A different kind of elf?” mused Foxface.
“From far away perhaps,” suggested Cornsilk.
Blackthorn was shaking his head, and Cliffdancer frowning.
Sunbeam reached down towards the creatures head. Its face was turned towards the earth, and mostly hidden, but from a short covering of dark hair, one impossibly rounded ear jutted, and he stroked along its strange shape. “I know what this is,” he said, and glanced up at the others.
“Tales to frighten elflings,” muttered Foxface, and Blackthorn’s fingers flashed in a warding sign.
As if conjured, the body suddenly jerked against its bonds, straining away from the ground, and turning its head. Its eyelashes flashed upwards, and Sunbeam found himself staring into eyes the colour of the midsummer sky before a storm, deep and bottomless blue. No elf ever looked out of eyes that colour.
Sunbeam wrenched his gaze away. “It’s a human.”
**“We don’t make war on humans,” Cornsilk replied, and despite its movements she crouched down to peer more closely at the not-troll. “And they do not look like something that belongs in the underearth!”
“It’s a different kind of human,” Sunbeam allowed. “From far away, perhaps.”
Cornsilk shot him a fiery glare – using her own words back at her! – but she tipped her head consideringly. “A star fell, three nights after the halfmoon.”
“Another!” Foxface exclaimed, and he looked up at the clear blue sky, as if to see one descending on them as they stood talking.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sunbeam asked, looking back down at the figure on the ground. It had stopped pulling on the rope, and was twisting its neck around, wincing with the pain, and eyeing them warily. Did it understand?
Cornsilk shrugged. “I was on watch. The Oak told me not to.”
“Where ever it came from, we only have until twilight to make it talk,” Cliffdancer reminded them. “And if it’s not a troll and it’s not an elf, then how do we do that?”
Sunbeam crouched down beside their captive, and gazed at it assessingly for a moment, then he looked directly into its strange blue eyes. “With what tongue do you speak?” he asked, in Human. There was no reply, and so he repeated himself in Troll and then, with more frustration than hope, in Elvish. Was the creature being stubbornly silent or did it truly not understand?
The human took a breath, sniffed. “With my own tongue,” it said in Elvish, “but I could murder a drink.” Its voice was deep but rough, and Sunbeam knew it was in pain, but it had understood him - or almost.
Behind him he felt the others draw back, knew the fright that would be on their faces at the harsh rumbling of their creature, at its threat even as it lay bound on the earth. But they had captured it - his company had captured it - and he would not report to the Oak that they had been too timid to complete the quest.
“There will be no killing here…” he began, then stopped when the human spluttered and bared its teeth. Was it laughing at them?
“I’m thirsty,” the creature said, “I just meant I’m thirsty.” It closed its eyes.
Blackthorn was already moving to fetch water in a leaf, and so Sunbeam stayed still, watching. The human was breathing more loudly now, and its pale skin shook with a fine trembling despite the warmth of the sun. The wound was no doubt paining it, and the shock of being caught.
Cornsilk took the twist of leaf from Blackthorn, hesitating for a bare moment before she dropped to her knees and held it cautiously towards the human’s mouth. It had roused once more at the movement, and now it lifted its head as much as it could, parted its lips. Sunbeam watched the trickle of water as it slid from leaf to mouth, moistening pink lips, leaving drips on skin, mostly disappearing from sight in thirsty gulps.
“Thanks,” the human said at last. “Now I don’t suppose…” It tugged again at the ropes that bound it.
It was bold, thought Sunbeam, approving. “Tell us where the trolls make camp,” he said out loud, because he was bold as any pale, trussed human.
“Tell me who you are, first.”
Sunbeam raised his eyebrows, then looked up and around with amusement clear on his face. It wouldn’t do to let the others think this human had the power to question them.
“Tell me why I should not end your life now,” Cornsilk suggested smoothly, instead of being cowed. She slid her bow from its place at her shoulder, nocked an arrow, and stretched it to the human’s temple.
“Because if you help me I might be able to help you.”
“But we don’t need to help you,” Foxface pointed out. “We could leave you here to die quite easily.”
“I’ve heard better things of your folk than that,” the human said, looking at Sunbeam as he said it. “That’s the difference between you and the dwarves, or the trolls.”
“Or the humans,” Sunbeam couldn’t help saying, and in his voice was the darkness of days past.
But their human just sniffed again, gave them a wry half-smile “Or humans,” it agreed. “Look at least let me turn over. You could have tied me down somewhere softer!”
Sunbeam glanced without meaning to at the human’s naked haunches, pale maybe but muscled and sleekly shaped. Not so different from his own. He would look the same underneath too. Perhaps. Perhaps bigger. He swallowed, looked back up to the human’s face. “It would be more cruel to tie your shoulder to the soil.”
“My…?” It turned its head the other way, stretching to try and see. “That bloody log… I can’t feel anything…”
“Numbweed,” Cornsilk said. “And a good healer.”
The human turned its head back, looked at him for a moment, and Sunbeam wondered if it were possible to fall into such blue eyes… Magics! The human was trying to use magic against him! He wrenched his gaze away. “Where do the trolls make camp?” he asked again.
“Tell you what, Sunshine…” the human began, and Sunbeam heard the others gasp, almost felt them take a step backwards, away. Magics… his head whispered in warning again.
“You guess wrongly,” Cornsilk hissed, “And you try my patience.” She stretched her bowstring a little further, held it a little closer to the frail white skin of the human’s neck.
“What…?” The human looked puzzled for a moment, then shifted his gaze back to Sunbeam. “Look, the only thing I’m guessing is that you want to be under cover before it gets dark, same as me. I’m not your enemy.”
“Then who are you?” The sun still shone upon them, but it was lower, ever lower. Maybe this had been a mistake, this grand adventure of theirs.
“I don’t fight with the trolls - or the dwarves, or anyone else.” He paused, considered a moment. “Maybe with the Cow, but he’s not on their side either.”
“Why should we believe you?” Cliffdancer asked. “We found you at the troll camp, you fought us.”
“Look, you attacked me! ”
“Then why were you at the camp?”
“Because your bloody trolls have got my ship, that’s why!”
A ship? For just a moment Sunbeam pictured the glittering, endless blue sea, felt the wind in his face and tasted salt. To be high in the rigging again, a part of the air and the wind and the speed of it all, sails flapping and dancing around him, and far, far away…
“You’re from the Islands?” Blackthorn suggested. “Were you captured by the trolls?”
“Were you trading with the trolls?” Foxface asked at the same time. It was not unknown for pirates from the Islands to be aiding their enemy.
Sunbeam shook his head. “He had no troll gold in his pockets, and I’ve never seen an Islander dressed like an automaton.”
“I’m not…” The human paused, let his head fall to the ground once more, flexed his shoulders a little. The numbweed was no doubt beginning to wear off, though it would be an hour yet until pain proper returned. “D’you have some more water?”
“We could take it to the Oak,” Cliffdancer said, looking around the company. The Oak would know what to do with it.
Sunbeam wrinkled his nose and looked away. They hadn’t exactly disobeyed orders by hunting a troll, but he hadn’t planned to bring one back to the Glade with him either - or a human - and the Oak would likely be displeased at such an interruption. He felt again the sun on his back, barely tree-height now, and around him the nods and agreement of the others. Should he try to argue them out of it?
“I’d like to meet this Oak,” the human said, lifting his head again suddenly, and there it was, decided.
~o0o~
They untrussed the human cautiously, Cornsilk and Foxface keeping their arrows nocked and steady, but he didn’t try to free himself, holding himself still for his hands to be bound behind his back, though he hissed as the thorns in his shoulder pulled, and Sunbeam began to wonder if there was truth in what he said about his allegiances.
Unless, of course, he had been sent to spy on the Glade, and it was they who were being deceived… It would explain why he had almost known Sunbeam’s name, why he claimed a wish to see the Oak. Was he, Sunbeam, bringing attack and disaster on them all, to satisfy his own desire for adventure, for the thrill of the chase? He should better have gone out chasing butterflies, or jumped madly at clouds in the sky, than lead his company into folly and ruin.
Standing to his full height, the human was barely a finger taller than Sunbeam, and three fingers shorter than Cliffdancer. The fearsomely marked helm he’d worn with the visor set back on his brow had fallen to the ground when he stood, and there was hair on his head, cut very short, and a shining brown so dark it was almost black. Beneath it, his blue eyes were even more startling, as if they reflected the sky, or perhaps the sea that sped beneath his ship. But his skin was still too pale, Sunbeam reminded himself, and if his manhood was as well-shaped as he’d imagined, then it was still simply a manhood, and was used for pissing in the same way as his own. Not so very different from them, for all he was more broadly built.
Cornsilk had given him more water, and they foraged as they went, one or the other of them reaching to feed the human berries or nuts, even a corner of honeycomb when they passed a friendly hive. He seemed more lively for it – which Sunbeam almost regretted – though the human kept his own counsel now, walking sure-footedly enough through the woods, despite seeming to prefer the paths they sometimes chose to use.
Blackthorn and Cliffdancer went ahead to scout their way, returning now and then to report to Sunbeam, and when they appeared he would feel again the human’s eyes on him, though they kept their voices quiet and close to their ears. They told him the forest was full of creatures, that birds watched their passing, that everything seemed safe. Blackthorn ran to climb the Bright Hill when they reached its side, and said that there was smoke to the east, a day’s journey from them and getting further away as they travelled west to the Glade.
They would only just arrive in time for nightfall, in time to enter the Gates and sleep in the safety of their own kin, and so Sunbeam hurried them along, not letting them pause even by the River where they usually stopped to search for messages from the Waterfey.
At last they drew close to the Glade, as the first stars were pricking the sky and the owls had begun their hunt. Night noises rose around them, making it harder to hear the sound of the enemy, and there was a smell of bogle and yarthkin, though they kept out of sight. They stopped at last, Blackthorn and Cliffdancer returning to take their place with the company once more. Sunbeam untied his cloak from around his quiver and covered the human, fastening it at the front with a starcross of thorns.
“Thanks,” the human said, almost all he had spoken since they began their march. “It’s cool now the sun’s down.”
“You’ll fright the elflings,” Sunbeam said steadily. “Don’t speak until you’re told.”
The human raised an eyebrow at him, but he said nothing - though Sunbeam suspected that was tease as much as obedience. He took a deep breath, glanced around once at his company, and then led them through the last of the trees and into the Glade.
~o0o~
I tried to track down the original author to ask more about the story, and whether she would mind her beginning being posted online, but with no luck (if anyone knows her and could put me in touch that would be great) and so instead of posting her beginning here, I rewrote it and offer up all credit to her for the original idea. I've marked the section that begins my own part of the story with a double-asterisk.
I do appreciate that I may lose alot of non-AU (and non-elf!) readers right here, and I may lose a few more when I tell you that there is much more of it to be written, but my excuse is still moving house/job/Christmas all at once I'm afraid - I've still not been able to catch up, and much as I tried to write something new and more CI5-ish, it just didn't happen. I will try to write something over the next few weeks though, because things are finally calming down - just a bit too late for the Bleak Midwinter...
Halfworld Mercenary
From an original unfinished piece by Emily Ross (Cold Fish and Stale Chips, Issue 2), rewritten and continued
by Slantedlight
In the depths of the woods, under cool green leaves and over the soft forest floor, they sped after the beast, fleet of foot and sure of success, the five of them finally working together as a single trained unit, and with one purpose - to bring the creature down. None of them were really sure what it was, despite their pursuit, but they all knew what they had seen and they knew that it was dangerous.
It had been a hard chase, but they were nearly there now - passing the grove of elegant birch with their copper bark, forcing the thing westwards and past old mother hazel, on and on towards the Edges, and then - yes! A sudden green snap! as the grass beyond came into sight, and their trap was sprung, a heavy ironwood log flung free and smashing hard into their unsuspecting prey. The creature fell, rolled half a dozen feet, and then was still.
They approached cautiously, as if it might be feinting, but they could all see where the ironwood had struck, crushing the beast’s dark shell. It lay face down before them and the company formed a ragged circle around it, doing nothing but catch their breath and watch, amazed and triumphant at their victory.
“We did it,” Blackthorn finally breathed, reaching out with his foot, nudging the thing. “We brought down our first troll!”
Cliffdancer tilted his head to one side. “Is it dead?”
Sunbeam stepped forward and crouched down beside the creature, placed a cautious hand on the shiny black carapace. “Can’t feel it breathing,” he reported at last, but it felt warm under him, and he ran his hand higher up, toward the crushed shoulder. It didn’t feel like anything he knew, not hide, nor horn… “This is metal,” he said suddenly. “No wonder our arrows couldn’t pierce it.” Even his own carefully placed shots had simply bounced away from the creature. He began to pull away some of the broken pieces.
“Metal!” Foxface exclaimed. “An automaton?”
Sunbeam shrugged - he would have to dig deeper to find out. The shards became harder to remove, until one fragment resisted his one-handed work entirely. He brought his other hand to the task, tugged harder, until it finally slid sideways and out. He frowned, held it up to the light.
Cornsilk reached out and touched it, and her finger came away red. “Blood,” she said. “Something in there is alive.”
“Or was,” Sunbeam agreed.
“I don’t like it!” Foxface decided, alarmed. “We should smash it!”
“In case it’s not dead!” Blackthorn agreed.
“No,” Cornsilk said, just as quickly, so that Sunbeam looked up at her curiously. “The war turns against us, and this is a new thing - we may be able to learn from it.”
“We should bind it,” Cliffdancer suggested. “Make it more safe.”
Sunbeam nodded. “Do it.”
Four of the five urging caution, more than enough, and they all hurried to turn agreement to action, tying it face down and spread-eagled, each limb secured with rope to a different tree.
Sunbeam returned to his exploration of the creature. Before long he had cleared away enough of the shell to properly see beneath and at first he stared, puzzled, before reaching down with a more confident finger and pulling the blood-matted grey cloth further away from the wound. “It wears clothes,” he said, reaching to pass the remnant back to Cornsilk to examine. She did not take it, and he frowned and turned to look at her.
She had stepped back, and was swallowing as if unwell, and Sunbeam looked again from her to the creature. The shell, the cloth, the blood… and then he saw what she had seen, and understood.
Under its armour, the creature was pale and naked as a grub, as if it had never seen the sunlight, never walked in the freshness of the wind and the rain. Against his own skin, long sun-kissed, it was an almost frightening contrast. He gritted his teeth, carried on cleaning the wound. At last, the others still watching cautiously lest it wake, he washed away the blood and cleaned the flesh, reached into his pack and staunched it with herbs, and finally pinned it together with thorns and twine. It would heal. He began to bind it round to keep it dry, and behind him Cliffdancer and Blackthorn began to work on the rest of the armour. In a moment they had the trick of it and their nimble fingers were undoing clasps and clips, peeling the shell away entirely, until even gauntlets and boots were gone. Cornsilk reached over with her knife, split the grey knit bodystocking along its centre, and pulled it free.
Naked before them, the creature was suddenly less of a creature, and barely more fearsome than they were themselves, for all its strange paleness. It was more heavily built, but not, Sunbeam thought, much taller, and from the back of its head along its spine and down to its feet, everything they could see looked perfectly familiar.
“A different kind of elf?” mused Foxface.
“From far away perhaps,” suggested Cornsilk.
Blackthorn was shaking his head, and Cliffdancer frowning.
Sunbeam reached down towards the creatures head. Its face was turned towards the earth, and mostly hidden, but from a short covering of dark hair, one impossibly rounded ear jutted, and he stroked along its strange shape. “I know what this is,” he said, and glanced up at the others.
“Tales to frighten elflings,” muttered Foxface, and Blackthorn’s fingers flashed in a warding sign.
As if conjured, the body suddenly jerked against its bonds, straining away from the ground, and turning its head. Its eyelashes flashed upwards, and Sunbeam found himself staring into eyes the colour of the midsummer sky before a storm, deep and bottomless blue. No elf ever looked out of eyes that colour.
Sunbeam wrenched his gaze away. “It’s a human.”
**“We don’t make war on humans,” Cornsilk replied, and despite its movements she crouched down to peer more closely at the not-troll. “And they do not look like something that belongs in the underearth!”
“It’s a different kind of human,” Sunbeam allowed. “From far away, perhaps.”
Cornsilk shot him a fiery glare – using her own words back at her! – but she tipped her head consideringly. “A star fell, three nights after the halfmoon.”
“Another!” Foxface exclaimed, and he looked up at the clear blue sky, as if to see one descending on them as they stood talking.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sunbeam asked, looking back down at the figure on the ground. It had stopped pulling on the rope, and was twisting its neck around, wincing with the pain, and eyeing them warily. Did it understand?
Cornsilk shrugged. “I was on watch. The Oak told me not to.”
“Where ever it came from, we only have until twilight to make it talk,” Cliffdancer reminded them. “And if it’s not a troll and it’s not an elf, then how do we do that?”
Sunbeam crouched down beside their captive, and gazed at it assessingly for a moment, then he looked directly into its strange blue eyes. “With what tongue do you speak?” he asked, in Human. There was no reply, and so he repeated himself in Troll and then, with more frustration than hope, in Elvish. Was the creature being stubbornly silent or did it truly not understand?
The human took a breath, sniffed. “With my own tongue,” it said in Elvish, “but I could murder a drink.” Its voice was deep but rough, and Sunbeam knew it was in pain, but it had understood him - or almost.
Behind him he felt the others draw back, knew the fright that would be on their faces at the harsh rumbling of their creature, at its threat even as it lay bound on the earth. But they had captured it - his company had captured it - and he would not report to the Oak that they had been too timid to complete the quest.
“There will be no killing here…” he began, then stopped when the human spluttered and bared its teeth. Was it laughing at them?
“I’m thirsty,” the creature said, “I just meant I’m thirsty.” It closed its eyes.
Blackthorn was already moving to fetch water in a leaf, and so Sunbeam stayed still, watching. The human was breathing more loudly now, and its pale skin shook with a fine trembling despite the warmth of the sun. The wound was no doubt paining it, and the shock of being caught.
Cornsilk took the twist of leaf from Blackthorn, hesitating for a bare moment before she dropped to her knees and held it cautiously towards the human’s mouth. It had roused once more at the movement, and now it lifted its head as much as it could, parted its lips. Sunbeam watched the trickle of water as it slid from leaf to mouth, moistening pink lips, leaving drips on skin, mostly disappearing from sight in thirsty gulps.
“Thanks,” the human said at last. “Now I don’t suppose…” It tugged again at the ropes that bound it.
It was bold, thought Sunbeam, approving. “Tell us where the trolls make camp,” he said out loud, because he was bold as any pale, trussed human.
“Tell me who you are, first.”
Sunbeam raised his eyebrows, then looked up and around with amusement clear on his face. It wouldn’t do to let the others think this human had the power to question them.
“Tell me why I should not end your life now,” Cornsilk suggested smoothly, instead of being cowed. She slid her bow from its place at her shoulder, nocked an arrow, and stretched it to the human’s temple.
“Because if you help me I might be able to help you.”
“But we don’t need to help you,” Foxface pointed out. “We could leave you here to die quite easily.”
“I’ve heard better things of your folk than that,” the human said, looking at Sunbeam as he said it. “That’s the difference between you and the dwarves, or the trolls.”
“Or the humans,” Sunbeam couldn’t help saying, and in his voice was the darkness of days past.
But their human just sniffed again, gave them a wry half-smile “Or humans,” it agreed. “Look at least let me turn over. You could have tied me down somewhere softer!”
Sunbeam glanced without meaning to at the human’s naked haunches, pale maybe but muscled and sleekly shaped. Not so different from his own. He would look the same underneath too. Perhaps. Perhaps bigger. He swallowed, looked back up to the human’s face. “It would be more cruel to tie your shoulder to the soil.”
“My…?” It turned its head the other way, stretching to try and see. “That bloody log… I can’t feel anything…”
“Numbweed,” Cornsilk said. “And a good healer.”
The human turned its head back, looked at him for a moment, and Sunbeam wondered if it were possible to fall into such blue eyes… Magics! The human was trying to use magic against him! He wrenched his gaze away. “Where do the trolls make camp?” he asked again.
“Tell you what, Sunshine…” the human began, and Sunbeam heard the others gasp, almost felt them take a step backwards, away. Magics… his head whispered in warning again.
“You guess wrongly,” Cornsilk hissed, “And you try my patience.” She stretched her bowstring a little further, held it a little closer to the frail white skin of the human’s neck.
“What…?” The human looked puzzled for a moment, then shifted his gaze back to Sunbeam. “Look, the only thing I’m guessing is that you want to be under cover before it gets dark, same as me. I’m not your enemy.”
“Then who are you?” The sun still shone upon them, but it was lower, ever lower. Maybe this had been a mistake, this grand adventure of theirs.
“I don’t fight with the trolls - or the dwarves, or anyone else.” He paused, considered a moment. “Maybe with the Cow, but he’s not on their side either.”
“Why should we believe you?” Cliffdancer asked. “We found you at the troll camp, you fought us.”
“Look, you attacked me! ”
“Then why were you at the camp?”
“Because your bloody trolls have got my ship, that’s why!”
A ship? For just a moment Sunbeam pictured the glittering, endless blue sea, felt the wind in his face and tasted salt. To be high in the rigging again, a part of the air and the wind and the speed of it all, sails flapping and dancing around him, and far, far away…
“You’re from the Islands?” Blackthorn suggested. “Were you captured by the trolls?”
“Were you trading with the trolls?” Foxface asked at the same time. It was not unknown for pirates from the Islands to be aiding their enemy.
Sunbeam shook his head. “He had no troll gold in his pockets, and I’ve never seen an Islander dressed like an automaton.”
“I’m not…” The human paused, let his head fall to the ground once more, flexed his shoulders a little. The numbweed was no doubt beginning to wear off, though it would be an hour yet until pain proper returned. “D’you have some more water?”
“We could take it to the Oak,” Cliffdancer said, looking around the company. The Oak would know what to do with it.
Sunbeam wrinkled his nose and looked away. They hadn’t exactly disobeyed orders by hunting a troll, but he hadn’t planned to bring one back to the Glade with him either - or a human - and the Oak would likely be displeased at such an interruption. He felt again the sun on his back, barely tree-height now, and around him the nods and agreement of the others. Should he try to argue them out of it?
“I’d like to meet this Oak,” the human said, lifting his head again suddenly, and there it was, decided.
They untrussed the human cautiously, Cornsilk and Foxface keeping their arrows nocked and steady, but he didn’t try to free himself, holding himself still for his hands to be bound behind his back, though he hissed as the thorns in his shoulder pulled, and Sunbeam began to wonder if there was truth in what he said about his allegiances.
Unless, of course, he had been sent to spy on the Glade, and it was they who were being deceived… It would explain why he had almost known Sunbeam’s name, why he claimed a wish to see the Oak. Was he, Sunbeam, bringing attack and disaster on them all, to satisfy his own desire for adventure, for the thrill of the chase? He should better have gone out chasing butterflies, or jumped madly at clouds in the sky, than lead his company into folly and ruin.
Standing to his full height, the human was barely a finger taller than Sunbeam, and three fingers shorter than Cliffdancer. The fearsomely marked helm he’d worn with the visor set back on his brow had fallen to the ground when he stood, and there was hair on his head, cut very short, and a shining brown so dark it was almost black. Beneath it, his blue eyes were even more startling, as if they reflected the sky, or perhaps the sea that sped beneath his ship. But his skin was still too pale, Sunbeam reminded himself, and if his manhood was as well-shaped as he’d imagined, then it was still simply a manhood, and was used for pissing in the same way as his own. Not so very different from them, for all he was more broadly built.
Cornsilk had given him more water, and they foraged as they went, one or the other of them reaching to feed the human berries or nuts, even a corner of honeycomb when they passed a friendly hive. He seemed more lively for it – which Sunbeam almost regretted – though the human kept his own counsel now, walking sure-footedly enough through the woods, despite seeming to prefer the paths they sometimes chose to use.
Blackthorn and Cliffdancer went ahead to scout their way, returning now and then to report to Sunbeam, and when they appeared he would feel again the human’s eyes on him, though they kept their voices quiet and close to their ears. They told him the forest was full of creatures, that birds watched their passing, that everything seemed safe. Blackthorn ran to climb the Bright Hill when they reached its side, and said that there was smoke to the east, a day’s journey from them and getting further away as they travelled west to the Glade.
They would only just arrive in time for nightfall, in time to enter the Gates and sleep in the safety of their own kin, and so Sunbeam hurried them along, not letting them pause even by the River where they usually stopped to search for messages from the Waterfey.
At last they drew close to the Glade, as the first stars were pricking the sky and the owls had begun their hunt. Night noises rose around them, making it harder to hear the sound of the enemy, and there was a smell of bogle and yarthkin, though they kept out of sight. They stopped at last, Blackthorn and Cliffdancer returning to take their place with the company once more. Sunbeam untied his cloak from around his quiver and covered the human, fastening it at the front with a starcross of thorns.
“Thanks,” the human said, almost all he had spoken since they began their march. “It’s cool now the sun’s down.”
“You’ll fright the elflings,” Sunbeam said steadily. “Don’t speak until you’re told.”
The human raised an eyebrow at him, but he said nothing - though Sunbeam suspected that was tease as much as obedience. He took a deep breath, glanced around once at his company, and then led them through the last of the trees and into the Glade.
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Date: 2018-01-04 06:51 am (UTC)It is wonderfully written and it was a nice piece of work for the start in the working day. Thank you! :-)
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Date: 2018-01-04 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-23 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 06:21 pm (UTC)(And thanks for turning me on to Cold Fish and Stale Chips. Someone else just posted a question about the zine, too.)
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Date: 2018-01-23 04:48 pm (UTC)I'm hoping to write some more too - I just have to get into the groove of this year...
Cold Fish and Stale Chips has some interesting stuff in it. It would have been such fun to be involved with! Maybe if fandom ends up abandoning lj and any central comm entirely, something like that will spring up again...
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Date: 2018-01-04 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-23 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 02:04 am (UTC)I really hope you can continue on, and we can learn more about the elvish Doyle and human Bodie. Very intriguing!
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Date: 2018-01-23 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 10:14 pm (UTC)Of course, now I want to read more of the story of Sunbeam and his black-armoured, pale-skinned, blue-eyed,
marginally-more-well-endowedcaptive, so I very much hope you continue with the story. *looks hopeful*no subject
Date: 2018-01-23 04:51 pm (UTC)PS - and I'd completely forgotten when I posted this, but there was that picture of Bodie you did that reminded me of this wip a while ago. I think we had a brief exchange about it at the time, even. I don't have a digital version, but it was on a red magnet with a blazing sunset sky, and Bodie's wearing black armour...
PPS - wait, it's not the one in your icon, is it...?!
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Date: 2018-01-23 05:19 pm (UTC)On the pic front, I think it might have been this one:-
and this is its companion:-
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Date: 2018-01-23 05:41 pm (UTC)I'll try, I promise!